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Alternative ways of presenting the results of the Olympics has become more popular in recent years. Google – as other media outlets – did alternative medal counts allowing you to rank the medals not by their absolute numbers, but by other indicators such as population, GDP, or even more quirky themes such as fans or healthy eating. Continue reading →

The Rio Olympics, the first on the South American continent, ended after a total of 972 medals were handed out in 306 events. Approximately 11500 athletes competed in 28 sports for a total of 306 gold, 307 silver and 359 bronze medals. The following cartogram series sums up the most successful of all participating countries by resizing each country according to the number of medals going to athletes from there:

Rio 2016, this year’s Summer Olympic Games are about to start. Following the suspension of a large number of Athletes from the Russian team, 11239 athletes are participating in the event, competing for 306 sets of medals. The following map gives an overview of where participants at this year’s event are from, still proving the overall picture of previous games with the wealthy parts of the world dominating the picture, but this year also with a larger number of athletes from South America and especially from Brazil as the host nation. Brazil as the host nations did not have to go through all qualifying rounds and received automatic entry in some disciplines. Also shown in this image is the all-time medal count from all modern Summer Olympics (1896 to 2012) as proportional circles on top of each country:

Although the 2014 Paralympics started in the middle of the turmoil of the ongoing political crisis in the Ukraine, they went by rather smoothly in the end as most politically controversial tend to do. Putting politics aside, the Russian dominance that already became apparent at the Olympics (see this map) was even greater: The final medal count saw Russia at top of the table with not only the most medals (80), but also most gold (30), silver (28) and bronze (22). Germany came second with 15 medals (9 of them gold), closely followed by Canada with 16 medals (but only 7 gold which put them in third place in the rankings). Second-most medals, however, were won by Ukraine which is an peculiar detail given the current political situation. Britain won the first gold medal ever at the Paralympic winter games, and 19 nations managed to win at least one medal. Here is the Worldmapper-style view of all medals, showing the countries of the world resized according to their total medals won at the 2014 Winter Paralympics (as well as the individual success in each medal category):

The politically controversial 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi (Russia) are history. What’s left as a legacy beyond the politics is the usual roundup of where the medals went and which nations managed to surprise or disappoint. The final medal count saw Russia being top of the table with not only the most medals (33), but also most gold (11) and silver (11). 26 nations managed to win at least one medal. Here is the Worldmapper-style view of all medals, showing the countries of the world resized according to their total medals won at the 2014 Winter Olympics (as well as the individual success in each medal category):

No more bread and circuses: London 2012 has turned into history while the Paralympic cauldron has been extinguished in a ‘Festival of Flame’. Just about time for a final roundup of the statistics of the games and the last maps that were still missing.
In the United Kingdom the spirit of the Olympics lived on in the Paralympics as created a similar media coverage (which has less been the case in many other countries). A lot of the public debate in Britain in the final debate of the Paralympics focussed on an increased relevance of the games – and that the results have started getting an equal importance as the Olympic medal counts. As already noticed at the Vancouver winter games, a comparison of the results showed some interesting differences in the achievements of the participating nations. This is shown in the following map animation of two cartograms showing each country’s share in the total medal counts (switching between the Paralympics and the Olympics 2012):